Studies in the First Epistle of John - Pastor Charles Oliveira -

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1 Studies in the First Epistle of John - Pastor Charles Oliveira - The Work of the Antichrists Sects and heresies are common phenomena in the Christian church since her beginning. According to Paul, false teachings proceed from Satan. He uses heresies to deceive the church and put her away from truth (1Tm 4:1,2). This is the first time John directly strikes at the false teachers, the Gnostics. Those false teachers were disturbing the order and peace among the churches in Asia. John denounced their errors, so that the church might refuse them. The church had to avoid being deceived by the Gnostics. After advising the church against the worldly life, John warns them against one of the Works of the world: the work of the antichrists. V. 18 Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. John called his readers tenderly, children. He invites them to pay attention to the schedule of the world when they were living. The world was passing away (2:17). Now he refers to the coming of its last hour. This is a common reference to the period between the first and the second coming of Jesus. The Bible calls this period the last days (Acts 2:16,17; 2Tim. 3:1), the end of the ages (1Cor. 10:11), later times or last time (1Tim. 4:1; Jude 1:18). It is not about a far future time, but to the present. This phrase designates the final and decisive in the history (C. Haas). According to the New Testament, the last time of this lost world began in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and will be over by the time of his second coming in glory. This present time is called last because there will no longer be days, centuries, hours and minutes in this fallen and condemned world. The time of this world will be ended up with the second coming of Jesus in glory, the final resurrection and the final judgment. Then it will be new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3.13). This last time is characterized by the appearance of false teachers. They teach wrong doctrines that look and seem like godliness. The readers, true believers, already knew this, according to John s words here. Antichrist means that one who opposes or takes Jesus place. The manifestation of the antichrist was considered a sign that the end was coming (John Stott). The first announcement of this darkening and eschatologic figure, the antichrist, was Daniel, the prophet. The majority of good interpreters says that the small horn in Daniel 7.8,11,20-26, and the prince who would come (Dan. 9.26), refer to the antichrist. His main characteristic is the war against the people of God and the desire to be like God. Jesus Christ, in his eschatologic sermon (Matthew 24), spoke of the manifestation of false christs and false prophets, performing great signs and wonders, deceiving many people (Matt. 24:5,11,24). Paul, the apostle, gives us more information about the characteristics and works of the antichrist in 2

2 Thessalonians 2:7-10. He will come in the power of Satan, performing signs and wonders, teaching wrong doctrines being finally destroyed by Jesus himself. The Asian believers were aware of such things through the preaching of the apostles. Finally, John says, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. John is teaching his readers that the antichrists are appearing to deceive the church. The antichrist would appear only in the end of the last hour. However, many antichrists have working now as false teachers. The church in Asia could easily confirm this. Their activity, even in that time, was to let the believers know that they were living the last hour of this world, characterized by the apostasy (related to the abandon of the truth), by err, by the religious lie. Therefore, they should watch and pray. Their time was difficult as well as our time. The false teachers were to pervert the church and deviate her from the right path. V. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. If you read Acts 20:29-31, you will notice that the false teachers appear in the church and from the church. In John s days, the antichrists were false teachers who came from Christian communities. Maybe they were leaders in the Christian community where they attended. We must understand the words they went out from us as the sphere of the apostles and masters. Possibly these false teachers had been pastors and masters that turned from the faithful church to the attractive and new ideas of that initial form of gnosticism. They apostatized from the Christian faith, went out from a Christian community, and tried to convince others about their false teaching. Nevertheless, they left the church in order to be clear that they never were true Christians or true apostles and masters (v.19). John sees their attitude of leaving the church as something providential. If somebody leaves the church and later opposes to the Gospel, it is a signal that this person never belonged to Jesus. Even professed believers can be false in the church. They will leave the church as soon as possible. However, the true sheep will never be snatched out from Jesus hand (John 10:28). Leaving the church is a signal that the person never belonged to Jesus Christ. Since John s days, many false teachers have appeared in the church, in the style of the antichrist. Even though their errors had been different, changing from time to time, we can identify such errors. We can use John s words as well as others parts of the Scriptures, which speak about the work of the false teachers. First, we ought to know the truth. Knowing the truth, we will recognize the false doctrine easily. V. 20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. Despite the work of the false teachers, (the antichrists), John assures his readers that they wouldn t be deceived because they had the anointing from Christ, the Holy One. What would this anointment, which gives knowledge, mean? Some

3 interpreters think that this anointment refers to the Word of God. They support their thought by relating this verse with verses 24 and 27 ( Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie just as it has taught you, abide in him ). This interpretation has basis in the following Jesus words, If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you (John 15:7). It speaks about the Word of Christ as something that must abide in us. This interpretation is not inferior to the other, which understands the anointment as the Spirit (C. Haas). However, we must understand the anointment as the Holy Spirit by the following reasons: 1. Anointment in the Old Testament was the act of pouring out oil on specific objects so that they might be separated to God (Exo. 40:9-15). 2. The New Testament reveals that Jesus was anointed by the Father with the Holy Spirit to be the perfect prophet, priest and king (Daniel 9:26; Acts 10:38; Heb. 1:1-9). In a secondary way, Christians also have prophetic, royal and priestly responsibilities. They are anointed by Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit so that they may carry out their work. 3. We were separated to God by the anointment of Jesus when we were converted (Eph. 1:13). 4. This anointment or seal that is the presence of the Holy Spirit in the believers. The Spirit testifies the truth, because the Spirit is the truth (1 John 5:6). 5. The Holy Spirit gives a powerful witness of the truth (1 John 5.8). 6. Jesus said, But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me (John 5:26). 7. The Holy Spirit teaches us about the truth giving the true knowledge of God ( When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come John 16:13). Anyway, this interpretation does not exclude the Word of God as an instrument whereby the Holy Spirit brings true knowledge to the believer. In John s days, the Gnosticism was in a primitive form. Later, the Gnostics insisted that an anointment as an initial ceremony to get the gnosis was necessary. Perhaps the false teachers in John s days were requiring this ceremony. Anyway, John taught the Christians that they already had the anointment that really matters. They already had the anointment that came from the Holy One. This knowledge was enough.

4 V. 21 I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. The apostle John was convinced that his readers were firm in the truth. John refers to the truth as the Gospel of Christ, which was preached by the apostles, and recorded in the Scriptures. The character of the Gospel is of total coherence and truthfulness. The lying religious folk and their errors that arose in the world, proceeded from distortions of the pure Gospel:... no lie is of the truth (2:21). In fact, lie comes from the devil (John 8:44). V. 22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. John just denounced the false teachers as apostates, antichrists and liars so far. Now he showed their main error: the denial of Jesus. There was a line of Gnosticism that was characterized by separating the man Jesus from the divine Christ, after the time of John. Its main defender was Basilides (circa 120 AD). It seems that he and his followers defended the strange idea that the divine Christ had descended upon the human Jesus at his baptism by John the Baptist, and that he had remained with the human Jesus throughout his ministry. This special capacity enabled him to perform prodigious works. Basilides taught that the divine Christ abandoned the human Jesus, causing the cry My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This teaching led to the idea of the separation between Jesus (human) and the Christ (divine). This teaching also denies that Jesus and Christ were one and the same person as well as it denies the incarnation of Christ. It seems that an embryonic form of this idea was being taught by the false teachers of Asia, who thus denied that Jesus was the Christ. John regards this teaching as a lie and a denial of God. John considers those who believed this way the antichrists proper. By denying the incarnation of Christ, they also denied the Father and the Son. They denied the Father, because he sent the Son into the world as a true man. God the Father gave ample witness about this. They denied the Son, because they also refused his real manifestation to the world when they denied the incarnation. The truth is that Christ is fully God and fully man. There are many other liars, but the liar par excellence is one who denies that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Father, divinity in human flesh (W. Elwell). V. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. John then applies the doctrinal test by which his readers could recognize the true character of those teachers who had gone out of the Christian churches and who were forming a new religion. They were denying the Son when they denied the incarnation of Christ. Therefore, they also denied the divinity of Jesus. Whoever does this has no fellowship with the Father, who sent the Logos into the world to be the Savior; rather, he is a false prophet. On the other hand, whoever acknowledges and confesses that Jesus is the incarnate Son of God, has fellowship

5 with God. Note that John does not consider the doctrine of those teachers as a valid complementary way to understand Christ, but as a pure and simple religious lie. Let s always remember that we are living in the last stage of this bad and corrupted world. The Lord will come soon to definitively install the coming world, the Kingdom of God, in its fullness. May this hope fill us with joy and assurance! On the other hand, let s be alert, for the kingdom of darkness, knowing that this is the last hour, is in effervescent activity. Satan is spreading error and lies within the churches and in the world. This is the hour of the antichrists. Let s stay on guard. We don t need to be afraid of being radical in terms of doctrine. Lie is lie and truth is true. While there are different ways to understand certain points revealed in the Bible, any interpretation that contradicts the foundations of faith must be rejected. The true believer can hesitate and be in doubt at times. He can be spiritually weak for a time, but he will never be led by religious errors to the point of abandoning Christ s church and embracing error. Those who have fallen away from faith and have gone to religious error have never been true believers.